Firstly, the hyper-focus on late passes seems to have dug its own grave. Every morning, students arrive to first period class five or 10 minutes late because they were waiting in line at the front door for a late pass. While yes, they arrived to school at 8:02, they don’t sit down until well after class has started. Isn’t this late pass system contributing to what our administration is so worried about – missing class time?

Classroom disruption doesn’t end in the morning. Even in my English class, situated next door to the bathroom, students are stopped and asked for hall passes. A teacher has no choice but to pause in their lesson to sign each hall pass. In an 80-minute class of 35, this is not an infrequent occurrence.

While, in theory, the new attendance policies should be an improvement, its execution has proven distracting and often frivolous.